6.28.2013

Sometimes life has this funny way of forcing you to slow down. Sometimes it's not a very welcomed way, like waking up with a double ear infection, sinus infection, sore throat and pink eye. Sometimes this whole big mess decides it wants to rear it's annoying-unrelenting-feverish self in the middle of your husband's busiest time at work, causing each day to solely go on thanks in part to Grandma. The motto of the last few days has been, undoubtedly, thank goodness for Grandma.

And so it's been a few days of camping out on the couch surrounded by prescriptions, tissues and matzoball soup. Ethan has been going to Grandma's in the morning and coming home for bedtime, looking at me cautiously and pointing out "mommy boo-boo" and, oh my goodness, I miss this boy. For a child who has never favored sleep, he has been climbing into his bed and whispering "night night mommy" and my moments with him are limited to watching him fall asleep on the video monitor. I like this less than the eye drops and the hacking cough that leaves your lungs screaming for help. (Did I mention our kitchen sink pipes burst and our kitchen is now unusable until the plumber is able to come -- on Monday? Because there's that, too.)

I'm looking forward to escaping the confines of this home, the aches and pains and coughs, and setting out to truly explore the summer with Ethan, splashing in the ocean and starting his next session of swim lessons and seeking refuge from the heat in the comfort of MyGym classes and indoor museums we've never yet visited. These are the thoughts, along with the soup and mashed potatoes and icy cold bottles of water, that are keeping me going. And Grandma, too. Thank goodness for Grandma.

6.26.2013

I'm not a crafty person by nature. I don't think I ever made a single thing until Ethan's first birthday party in which case I felt overwhelmed and on the brink of insanity. As time went on, I started to really, really enjoy crafting while hoping that I somehow became good at it. I'm still learning, but this time around, I really had fun making things for Ethan's second birthday party and taking those first small steps into the world of making-not-ordering things! Here's a little glimpse into some of the things I made for his Curious George party this past weekend, as well as all of the little details that went missed in my main party post!

THE INVITATIONS:

Alright, these I definitely didn't make. The amazing invitations came from Dizzy Design Studio. Aren't they cute?! She was amazing to work with and I loved everything about these invitations, right down to the fact you can customize what your little Curious Baby looks like.

In each invitation, I had one of these cards and the stamped envelope. If people wanted, in lieu of gifts, we were collecting donations for the Global Links Nebulizer Campaign to provide nebulizers (or breathing treatment machines) to those in need. (That's who I'm blogging for, too!) We figured Ethan didn't really need anything, but other children certainly did.

PARTY FAVORS:

Oh man, the party favors. I spent so much time on these, it's not funny. I think my husband breathed the biggest sigh of relief when the party ended and we could get our dining room table back. It was important to me to give the kids some really curiously fun bags without any candy or things like that in them.

I ended up making two bags: one for kids over 2, and one for kids under 2.

Both bags had contained Ethan's favorite thing ever - My True Nature bath bubbles in the cutest little bottles. These bubbles are pure, natural and contain plant-based cleansers that leave your little one in bubble heaven! I was so excited to be able to share this amazing product from one awesome company with all of our guests!

FOOD DISPLAY STANDS:

I made all of the food display stands at Ethan's party, and I was pretty proud of them! I went to the local Goodwill and picked up wine glasses ($0.10!), vases ($0.25!) and candle sticks ($0.90!) as well as other clear plastic or glass trays, platters, plates and bowls (all under $1!). From there, I took some Epoxy and attached the sticks or glasses to the bottom of the plates:

Once they were dried and washed for the first time (I let them sit for a full week because I'm neurotic), I spray painted them yellow, red and blue. The plus to using glass or clear plastic is you only spray paint the bottom side to the platters. That way, the entire thing looks painted without paint actually touching the surface that comes in contact with the food!

Ta Da!

I feel like my nights are now a little too empty without all my party-favor-assembling and spray-painting going on, but it's also nice to no longer have a dining room table that doubles as a moon sand factory.

6.25.2013

I decided I was going to start the tradition of doing an annual birthday interview with Ethan over the years. This year, I displayed his birthday interview at his party on little paper balloons (that folded up, but I fully accept your applause that I did not have a nervous breakdown upon this little mishap):

I'm going to keep the little balloons on a binder ring as a keepsake throughout the years, but I couldn't not share his little interview!

What's your favorite thing about birthdays?Cake!

What's your favorite memory from the past year?Tot school! Water park, Jonas and Chase! (There was one day we went to the splash pad with his two friends months ago and, for some reason, he had such a blast he still hasn't stopped talking about this day.)

Where's your favorite place to go?Baby boy park, skate park, baby boy park. (He calls the playground at the park the skate park is at "the baby boy park" because one time, there were a bunch of other baby boys his age that he played with.)

6.24.2013

The day has come and gone, and I think that Curious Ethan's 2nd birthday party was a success! Ethan's 1st birthday party with it's over 120 guests was a little chaotic and so I vowed -- mostly for my husband's sanity -- to do things a little smaller scale this year. The truth is, I absolutely love throwing these parties and all of the planning, crafting, chaos that goes into it. It's fun for me. I think somewhere the memo started being shared that Pinterest exists out of parental obligation, or to make other people feel bad when they don't do crafty things for parties, and it makes me sad to keep reading things like this because, really, I love it. And I love doing it because it's fun. I'm not even good at it, but I love it, so I will forever continue staying up until the wee hours of the night working on craft project after project for Ethan's birthday parties and pining over all of the little details that no one will notice until I frankly don't enjoy it anymore.

I have a few "details" posts coming up, but we opted to throw Ethan's 2nd birthday party at MyGym. Ethan has been attending MyGym classes since he was eight weeks old and his two teachers, Mr. Lee & Mrs. Karen, have become more like family at this point in Ethan's life. It was a complete no-brainer to have Ethan's party at MyGym and from there, all of the other details tied in perfectly. (I could use all the "go bananas" and "monkey around" puns I wanted, all in the comfort of MyGym's color scheme which matched beautifully to our Curious George theme! Fate? Yes, I think so. Ten points for MyGym Coconut Creek!)

The party was at 10:00 a.m., so we served plain bagels cut into quarters with butter or cream cheese, hummus cups with yellow pepper slices, applesauce, banana pudding, veggie straws and fruit.

My friend had the fabulous suggestion of tying one balloon to each goodie bag, thus solving the inevitable "balloon waste" problem. This way, the balloons were displayed beautifully and each kid got to bring one home! The few extra balloons we had were tied onto rings (thanks to Miss Karen's brilliant idea!) and placed on the countertops as centerpieces.

My friend did the amazing cake and cake pops -- the cake pops were colored to match the balloons!

Set up began at 8:45 a.m. for our 10:00 a.m. party and was finished with the help of my amazing, awesome, fabulous friends!

Instead of party hats, I made Curious George masks for all of the kids, thanks to the awesome printable on PBS online! Also, my Birthday Party Must is to put someone other than myself in charge of photographs! This year, the photographs were made possible by my teenage sister's good friend, Riya, who served as the Curiously Good Photographer of the day!

During circle time, Miss Karen announced a special guest who had just arrived...

"CAAAAAAAAAAAKE!"

It was an awesome day! Ethan had a blast celebrating his second birthday with all of our wonderful friends and family -- and his favorite monkey, too!